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The essential reading list for today's CIO
IT leaders share seven essential books every CIO should read. These include titles on effective leadership and navigating AI's growing influence.
In a role that faces constant disruption, CIOs are under pressure to think more strategically, lead more effectively and anticipate technologies that will reshape their organizations.
CIOs can find an endless stream of IT strategy frameworks, trend reports and leadership theories to guide their efforts, but determining which ideas deserve attention isn't always straightforward. To help CIOs narrow down their search for effective insights, we asked IT and business leaders about the top books every CIO should read.
Their answers included leadership staples that help technology executives clarify purpose and communicate more effectively, strategy guides that cut through complexity, and urgent explorations of AI, risk and the forces shaping the next era of innovation. Together, these recommendations offer a concise reading list for IT leaders looking to elevate their leadership and prepare their organizations for the future.
What's one book every CIO should read and why?
"Simon Sinek's book, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, is really powerful. Everyone should read that book and then read it again. And then when they've got something going on, they should read it again, because it forces you to focus on why IT is doing whatever it's doing -- which is the only important bit.
There are multiple ways to do everything. When CIOs say, 'We're going to do this massive ERP redeployment,' it often becomes all about the ERP deployment itself, and not about why it's going to be better for customers and the business. Nobody cares about the deployment. It's all about the outcome."
-- Graeme Thompson, CIO of Informatica
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"Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, by Simon Sinek. It really pushes you to collaborate with your whole team -- from frontline workers to business leaders -- to ensure IT is actually solving their problems."
-- Faizel Khan, lead AI engineer at Landing Point
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"The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma, by Mustafa Suleyman is very relevant. Also, I recommend The Risk Business: What CISOs Need to Know About Risk-Based Cybersecurity, by Levi Gundert. It's a good book about risk. My business is risk, and it's a quick read. It's enjoyable and not dry."
-- Vince Fattore, CIO of RoadSafe Traffic Systems
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"Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. It argues that progress often stalls due to process bottlenecks or what they call 'vetocracy,' which aligns with our discussion about making environmental, social and governance (ESG) part of business-as-usual and using technology to move from measuring to actually building."
-- Anuj Shah, head of responsible investing at Grant Thornton Stax
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"Radical Candor, by Kim Scott. It illustrates how the ability to communicate in direct terms is extremely important."
-- Emilio Esposito, director of data and platform engineering at LegalZoom
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"Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters, by Richard Rumelt. It provides an outstanding framework for diagnosing problems in your business, understanding the universe of possible solutions and then executing narrowly for real returns. I find myself returning to it every year and learn something new every time I read it."
-- Noah VanValkenburg, head of operations at LegalZoom
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"Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, by Max Tegmark. It offers a thought-provoking look at how AI could change our world -- and what kind of responsibility, foresight and policies we'll need to handle the risks."
-- Stephen Franchetti, CIO of Samsara
